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Wednesday, April 9th

We Will Rock You: Welcome To The Future. This is Synthwave.

by Jon Hunt

Synthwave (or “Outrun“–because most of the music literally sounds like someone “outrunning” an attacker) is an entirely grassroots synth-music movement. It rose out of both the gaming and film-nerd scenes (honestly, they’re a lot of the same people, surprise surprise) and has literally zero major-label support or big-media push. It started when video game developers started using the look and feel of old ’80s cartridge games and B-movies as an aesthetic guide, and hired analog synth nerds to score the games with like-minded sounds. Gamers fell madly in love. And once film nerds hugging their copies of Suspiria realized this was their bag too, they fell in love. Later, the metal scene, the synth-geek scene, the prog scene, the design scene et al started taking notice. Two years from now, you won’t be able to spit without hitting a Synthwave artist. It will be just like on “Buck Rogers,” the ’70s TV series. Everyone will be hula-hooping with light-up hoops in silver jumpsuits. And you can say you heard it here first.

90% of the bands and musicians practicing Synthwave are on Bandcamp or SoundCloud, and you can listen to them for free. This is awesome.

I’ll make it simple for you. Here are the influences of Synthwave, in bullet list form:

70s and 80s Horror movies. The DIY aesthetic and the soundtracks, especially those of John Carpenter and Goblin (from Dario Argento’s movies, especially his 80s films like Phenomena)

70s and 80s Sci-Fi movies. Especially any that have the stink of “B movie” about them — see the first Terminator as possibly the biggest touchstone.

Anything Tangerine Dream and Vangelis did in the 80s. Particularly their soundtracks — Blade Runner for Vangelis and Legend for Tangerine Dream.

NPR’s “Music From The Heart Of Space.” Remember that show? If you were a stoner in the 80s, you sure do — it was a mellow-as-hell space-music and New Age show. It all sounded like Cosmos. It ruled.

You will probably like Synthwave if you are:

A movie buff

A music nerd

A videogame nerd

An 80s fan, i.e. anybody who goes to Jake Rudh’s Transmission

A person who just loves any DIY shit that none of their friends have heard of

Which, I’m guessing, covers about 99% of my readership. So chances are, you will love this stuff.

Here’s a guide to some good starting points:

Perturbator, I Am The Night – Perturbator is possibly the biggest rising star of the Synthwave movement–he was recently signed to Blood Music, an indie metal label mostly known for doomy metal, proving definitively that there’s some crossover between fans of that stuff and the Carpenter / Argento horror flicks that inspire I Am The Night. Hints of Goblin auteur Claudio Simonetti’s 80s Argento scores (not to mention Angelo Badalamenti’s Nightmare on Elm Street 3 soundtrack) abound, from the arpeggiated analog synths of “Retrogenesis” to the insistent heartbeat throb and minor-key menace of “Technoir.” I absolutely love I Am The Night‘s paranoia-inducing darkness–this is some seriously authentic ’80s menace, and if you can make it through without feeling like there’s a dude behind you with a seriously large knife, then mister, you’re a better man than I. Click here to listen.

Sellorekt/LA Dreams, Light Speed – Sellorekt/LA Dreams is the most prolific artist in the Synthwave movement. He comes out with a new album every couple months, and throws ’em up on Bandcamp with an awesome sleeve for 8 bucks (or for you to stream for free). You’d think with that kind of insane level of output, he’d have to suck once in a while, but all his albums are listenable and super entertaining. His best album is usually just “whatever his latest one is,” as he refines his sound to ever more perfectly capture the vibe of the cheesiest-possible 80s film soundtracks. His stuff is definitely on the B-movie action-film end of things, so if you have any nostalgia saved up for movies from the 80s featuring one straight-laced cop and one cop who’s a renegade and can’t keep his shit together but saves the day at the end, this shit will be exactly your bag. Click here to listen.

Power Glove, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon – Power Glove are a synth duo from Melbourne known for the soundtrack to a video game called Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, which perfectly captures the vibe of late-’80s post-apocalyptic B-movie sci-fi. The game started as a gag–an April Fools Day joke on a video game website, actually — but when people actually demanded the damn thing, they were forced to make it. The score became a hit in the synthwave scene, possibly the biggest hit the scene has had. Fair enough: it’s great. Very much in the vein of the Terminator soundtrack, with thumpy, martial-sounding syn-drums and analog drones abounding. And talk about “outrun”–this stuff was actually created for you to outrun stuff in the game, so it encapsulates that term magnificently. It’s amazing, energetic stuff, and playing it in your car makes you feel like you have hood-mounted machine guns and a mohawk.

Starforce, Omniversal Oscillations – Remember “Music from the Hearts of Space” on MPR? Remember sci-fi movies from the late-’70s and early ’80s which were almost wholly soundtracked with analog synth? Remember when Tangerine Dream went synth, and started making soundtracks to Ridley Scott flicks? Starforce surely does–all of those (and more) are obvious touchstones. Unlike many of the other synthwave/outrun artists, Starforce–actually Chris Highlander and Kim Wakefield, from Finland–produce a wildly optimistic sound that wouldn’t be remotely out of place on, say, an episode of the old Sagan Cosmos, complete with clips from old NASA space missions and era-appropriate films. Omniversal Oscillations is actually one of the most listenable of the Synthwave albums–unlike the adrenaline rush from being chased by an imaginary dude with a knife, these songs have you floating in an early ’80s stratosphere, complete with pink and blue neon glow. Click here to listen.

Com Truise, Galactic Melt – Com Truise has emerged as a kind of iTunes standout of the Synthwave scene–the New York-based musician has been featured on the iTunes “electronic” section front page, and while that’s hardly star-making, it definitely means he’s more well-known (or at least gimmicky, name-wise) than many of his Synthwave companions. Galactic Melt showcases his style perfectly–it’s far glitchier than any of his compatriots, and while it still has that analog sound Synthwave fans demand, it definitely shows influence from, well, at least the ’90s as well as the ’80s. It’s still plenty neon-colored and plenty sci-fi-cool, but you can almost–almost–dance to the damn stuff, and I’d bet a buck as he evolves it will head even further in that direction. Plus: amazing album covers. Click here to listen.

Lazerhawk, Skull and Shark – Lazerhawk’s music is very much in an ’80s horror/action vein, and his stuff is some of the most aggressive of all the synthwave artists. Meaning that if you’re a metalhead, and you like deathy stuff and action flicks where people get limbs blown off and people have metal skeletons, this is probably for you. Lazerhawk, too, has been getting some national notice, and Skull and Shark shows his ever-evolving and ever-darker vibe perfectly–with song titles like “Massacre,” “Dangerous After Dark” and “These Streets,” you kinda know what you’re getting, right? Street Fighter stuff. Stuff starring karate people. Leather jackets. Sunglasses. Dark alleys. Drug cartels. Crime. Click here to listen.

Umberto, Confrontations – Umberto is not Italian, though from his name and his sound you’d be totally forgiven for thinking so. The former Matt Hill (of Kansas City, MO, believe it or not) has taken Claudio Simonetti’s synth-driven ’80s work absolutely to heart and constructed albums that sound like the soundtracks to imaginary Gialli. His motto: never fail to arpeggiate whatever can be arpeggiated, and this analog methodology creates some beautifully retro-sounding albums. Confrontations is his most sophisticated work, the soundtrack to an imaginary alien invasion movie that sounds, well, Italian, from the dread lurking in “Dead Silent Morning” to the tension-and-release of “The Invasion.” Only on “Night Fantasy,” the obvious opening-credits song, does the dread lift a little bit, with the cheesiest possible synth pads creating an optimistic ’80s action vibe. It’s great stuff, and like Perturbator, the chance to score an actual film seems inevitable. He seems the perfect pairing with neo-classic horror directors like Ti West (House of the Devil). Let’s make that happen, folks. Click here to listen.

Miami Nights 1984, Turbulence – Miami Nights 1984, on the DIY Rosso Corsa label, highlight one of the other key vibes of the Synthwave scene — the whole “driving down a Florida highway with palm trees on either side in a pastel-colored suit with half a pound of cocaine sitting in the passenger seat” vibe that people associate with the ’80s. In other words–if I told you this was the soundtrack to an episode of “Miami Vice,” you’d buy it 100%. Neon. Neon. Lots of neon. You have to listen to this one while you’re driving, fast, or it doesn’t work worth a damn. Click here to listen.

Judge Bitch, Gridiron – You gotta figure these guys took their name from an imaginary Judge Dredd character, right? Which kind of gives you a sense of where this one is coming from, i.e. a post-apocalyptic future where people pit their lives against each other in some kind of awful game arena. The dark elements are definitely to the fore, but this isn’t aggressive stuff, really–Judge Bitch loves to play with the contrast between extreme light and extreme dark. Sure, “MDK” starts with a computer voice saying “Murder…death…kill,” but it ends with nifty horn-hits and some cool cop-movie buzzes that sound more fun than terrifying. This one is the fave of my friend Jason, who introduced me to this genre in the first place–as a video game nerd non pareil, he knows his stuff, and as a guy who grew up in the ’80s, he cut his teeth on this kind of vibe, so when he says it’s highly recommended, he means it. Click here to listen.

Zombi, Escape Velocity – Unlike most of the one-and-two-man synth shows above, Zombi are virtually unique in that they feature an actual drummer, the virtuosic A.E. Paterra, along with keyboardist Steve Moore. They’re also one of the first bands to flirt with this sound–they’ve been around since the early ’00s. As solo artists, both explore the spaceways with drifty, floaty new age music (Moore’s Pangaea Ultima from last year was magnificent for fans of ’80s sci-fi soundtracks) but together, they’re right in the Giallo wheelhouse, going so far as to open for the Simonetti-less version of Goblin for their 2013 tour. Moore has said he doesn’t want to be solely associated with “bloody gloves”–and sure enough, their music transcends their influences, with tons of nifty prog-inspired drumming, futuristic synth sounds and cool arpeggiations that sound as at-home in the sci-fi milieu as they do in the horror. The drums add a layer of energy, too; an insistence that their synth-only compatriots lack (plus, I’m told they’re a magnificent live band as a result). If anything, Zombi owe more to ’70s space rock than their compatriots do–there are plenty of “rockist” moments across their albums, and even a few guitars here and there (heaven forfend!). Click here to listen.